Jazz Monthly.com Interview with shilts

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Shilts

Smitty: Well, I am just incredibly happy to welcome back to JazzMonthly.com an incredible artist. He’s one of my top five sax players. His latest CD is just so voluminous with fantastic sonic value, emotional gravity, and a high definition vibe. This cat has such volition to be heard and to reach a wider audience with his great vibe. His music will certainly make you get up and move and groove. The record is called Jigsaw Life. Please welcome the soulful and amazing Shilts. Shilts, how ya doin’, my friend?

Shilts: Oh, Smitty, you just took the words right out of my mouth.

Smitty: (Laughs.) I know, man. How cool. I am loving the Jigsaw Life, you know?

Shilts: Good, good, good.

Smitty: Well, hey, we were talking earlier in the year about this project and I remember you talking about how excited you were to get it out there and waiting to see how the fans were going to receive it, and I’ll tell you right now, this is just brilliant, man. I feel such a great elevation from HeadBoppin to Jigsaw Life. It’s just a fantastic book of music that you’ve done.

Shilts: Well, thank you.

Smitty: Yeah. So now talk to me about Jigsaw Life. How does a Jigsaw Life work?

Shilts: Well, obviously I wanted to do something different after the HeadBoppin thing and this time around I decided I’m going to do pretty much all original material on this one, there’s no covers, and it was my first solo production. So this was really all in-house this time. I singly wrote six out of the ten tracks and the other four were co-written with my good friend and keyboard player Bill Steinway, and everything was done at home in the studio here and it was just a project that I wanted to do pretty much in-house and that’s how it turned out. I did all the writing here and the production, recording and the mixing, pretty much everything. It was a good project for me to sort of like knuckle down and learn how to use all this equipment that I’ve accumulated.

Smitty: Yeah, so how does that all work? How does that fit in the mix of things when you’re working on a new project and you have this great vision for how you want it to sound and how you want to express yourself with your new music? How does that all work together with working with new equipment and that kind of thing? Because sometimes it could be a beautiful experience and sometimes it could be a bit cumbersome, you know?

Shilts: Oh, we had some moments where I just wanted to pick everything up and throw it out the window, but there were moments where everything was going great and the ideas were flowing and the music was happening and it was a joy, like you say, but what with all the technology that’s available nowadays, there is so much that you can do just with a computer and a few pieces of equipment. Technology and home recording stuff has advanced so much in the last couple of years, I think we take it for granted now what’s available out there and you really can make a good sounding record with a small budget and a small amount of equipment.

Smitty: Yeah, well, I will tell you, man, the sound is just fantastic. I mean, from the first note of “Piece by Piece” to the last song, “Time Gentlemen Please,” man, it’s just…

Shilts: (Laughs.)

Smitty: Oh, that is a kickin’ track. Man!

Shilts: Yeah, I tried to keep each track sort of separate. I didn’t want anything to sort of sound the same, oh, Track 6 sounds like Track 4 and blah-blah-blah. So I really tried to get each track to have an individual sound to it and a flavor. Obviously it’s still within the realms of the genre of music, but I wanted each to have a different kind of taste to it.

Smitty: Yes indeed. It has such a great mix and like you said, it’s like a party record but at the same time there’s a great serious overtone in terms of musicality. This is Shilts really expressing himself about his music, you know?

Shilts: Well, I tried. (Both laugh.) That’s all you can do, really, is you try and I just wanted to write some original music and it just came out. That was what was going around in my head at the time. I mean, you could sit down and do it all again and it would come out completely different. I guess that’s the good thing about music. You get your emotions and all your feelings into what you were working on at the time.

Smitty: True. Talk a little bit about when you’re putting the record out in a year where the music business is sort of on the bottom side. What goes through your mind when you’re dealing with that and putting the record out there?

Shilts: Well, I really wanted to just do something original for myself and I didn’t want to go down the line of, oh, let me pick an old soul classic and turn it into a smooth jazz song. I wanted to write fresh material and I can’t really say “Well, I wrote this one for radio or that one for radio.” I mean, I had no idea what radio would choose and, funny enough, the record label went with “Back on the Hudson” and it was one of the ones I thought would not be a single. But I just wrote when I felt like it and come up with the stuff and just fingers crossed, just hoped that people would enjoy it and also that radio would embrace it and that there were tracks on there that people should hear. And I think that a lot of the material that’s been coming out lately has been a little bit watered down and I just wanted something that wouldn’t be like that.

Smitty: Yes, because this is a very strong project, man. It has so many great elements. And when you talk about the saxophone, there’s a million saxophones, but you have been so true to your sound and you’ve kept your voice so strong on every project, be it you doing your solo projects or with anyone else. It’s just always been a strong vibe and I think that’s what your fans look forward to, is feeling that raw, strong Shilts out there doing his thing.

Shilts: Yeah, I feel that there are some boundaries you have to do on records nowadays and everybody wants to see at least 10 tracks on an album. In the old days I’d buy albums where you’d have one track on side one and you’d turn the LP over and there’d be a second track, and that was fine by me. I was loving it just because of the music. But with CDs now, people want their value for money and they want their 10, 11, 12, possibly more tracks now and so you’re sort of constrained to the fact that you can’t go doing five and six-minute solos now. Most of the songs are only four to five minutes long anyway. But you sort of get the portion of the album how you want it and you try and put out the best you can and then you take that one step forward when you go and do the gigs live and then that’s when you can expand on these tunes and you can take them off in directions that you couldn’t have done on the album, which is more part of the fun for me.

Smitty: Yeah, a lot of fun. And I was thinking, listening to the project, I said “I hope he’s putting together a real nice tour because this is gonna be some fantastic live music, man.” I tell ya, and I’m talking to the fans out there now, when you see that Shilts is coming to your venue, don’t miss it because this is amazing music. If you want to get up and groove and dance and just listen to some fantastic music, Jigsaw Life, this is the project, man. You really scored up with this one, Shilts.

Shilts: Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

Smitty: Yes indeed. Yeah. So how’s that going? Are you getting out there on the road or getting all geared up for that?

Shilts: Yeah, it’s actually been not a bad year. I’ve actually done quite a lot of touring and it’s been in sort of different stuff. I’ve obviously done some shows of my own, but at the beginning of the year I went out on tour with Was (Not Was), which was great fun. I really absolutely enjoyed that and it was the first time that I’d done sort of a bus tour since the early days of Down to the Bone, so it had been about eight years since I’d done a condensed sort of four or five weeks on the road. We went back to London, which was great because I hadn’t been home for four years, so I got to do that and have a few beers with the boys, which is always very important to me (both laugh), as you know.

Smitty: Yeah, man.

Shilts: And then I had portions of the year where I did my own shows and I was out with Rick Braun and I did some stuff with Peter White, and obviously this was my last year running the Down to the Bone thing, so that all brought that into a full circle and we are where we are now. And I’ve got an agent now, Steve Butler, at Mighty Music Corp. now booking me. So we’re starting to fill in shows for towards the end of this year and we’re starting to get stuff in for next year now, so we’re really building up for next year. This is when it’s gonna really hit and then I’m gonna be out on the road with my own band and doing the stuff and featuring stuff from all three albums now, which is gonna be good for me, and also playing a few Down to the Bone songs along the way.

Smitty: Very cool, man. I must say that when I talked to you earlier in the year, we were on the Smooth Music Cruise.

Shilts: Yeah.

Smitty: And we had a lot of fun there and it looks like you’re coming back. You’re gonna be on the Smooth Music Cruise hosted by Norman Brown in January 09!

Shilts: I am. Yeah, I’ll be there in January and looking forward to that again. As you know, it’s always good fun and you never know what’s gonna happen each evening, especially with the jam sessions side of it. There’s some good faces on there this year so I think there’s gonna be some really good music.

Smitty: I totally agree. You mentioned the jam sessions. Is that a real fun time for you to just stretch out and do some really cool stuff with some musicians that you don’t normally perform with?

Shilts: It can be great fun and obviously with people like Larry Carlton again coming on. These are people that for me personally, I don’t really get a chance much often to play with, and certainly growing up in London I never would have ever imagined one day that I could be on stage with Larry Carlton. So it’s an absolute huge honor for me and I’m sure for most of the other musicians on the boat, but there’s also, you know, Mindi’s [Abair] coming on this year and Michael Lington’s coming on, so there are some strong musicians there, strong characters, and it always makes for a good balance of playing styles, so for the audience’s side it’s a unique experience, really, because you never know what’s gonna happen and these things can’t ever be repeated again really.

Smitty: Yeah, that’s once in a lifetime every time.

Shilts: Yeah.

Smitty: What’s it like being able to really mix it up with the fans whereas you don’t normally get to do that. You do a gig and you sign a few CDs, you’re out the door, and you may not see those fans for another six months or a year or more.

Shilts: Indeed, yeah. Well, that’s sort of really the fun part of the cruise experience as well. You’re basically on vacation with your fans and they’re wonderful people, they’re very gracious, and in fact, after the last cruise I met some couples, my wife and I, because my wife came with me last time on the cruise as did the children, and we’re gonna go back again this year, and we’ve made lifelong friends from the last cruise. We’ve actually kept in touch and they have been out to stay with us and we’ve made some wonderful, wonderful contacts, and so this is another bonus as well. We’re out there making friendships that are gonna last and all through this music, so it’s a great experience and it’s just a nice thing to be able to go and do.

Smitty: Yes indeed. So am I gonna hear some of this Jigsaw Life on that ship?

Shilts: Oh yeah, well, you heard some last year. I actually played one of the tunes.

Smitty: That’s right.

Shilts: “Back On The Hudson” went down very well. That’s the single at the moment. That went down very well, so I shall be returning to that again, but I haven’t really worked on all the stuff live. I’ve got my first real big show coming up in a couple of weeks’ time up here in Palmdale in California. It’s the Palmdale Wine & Jazz Festival and I’m actually performing and I’m hosting it.

Smitty: Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Shilts: So I’m gonna really test the waters with a lot of the tunes there and that’s gonna be a really good day as well.

Smitty: Yes indeed. Shilts, your shows are always high energy, man. It’s never dull when you’re on stage, so it’s always a great show to anticipate, you know?

Shilts: Well, thank you.

Smitty: Yeah, man. Now, you’re with a new label, you’re with NuGroove out there with “The Chack” [David Chackler).

Shilts: Yes.

Smitty: Yeah, how’s that going?

Shilts: So far so good. We all seem to be on the same page and the same wavelength, and they’re very excited about the album. They’ve got high hopes for it and they’re digging it and it’s in all the stores, which is always a good sign, and they’re very optimistic that it’s gonna do quite well, which is nice. It’s nice to have a label that believes in your product and it’s also nice to have a relationship with people like I had with ARTizen, but I knew everybody on the label and it’s nice to be in a new family label, but I know everybody there. I’ve had experience with all the guys before and there’s other artists on the label which I admire and get along with. This also leads to other possibilities as well as far as touring or matching up with people, and so it’s a good roster to be on.

Smitty: Yes, so you’re having a great year with new music, a new label, and you’re getting out there meeting some new fans, and I always look forward to getting to one of your shows and checking out what you’re doing up there. It’s always a lot of fun.

Shilts: Well, that’s why we do it, isn’t it?

Smitty: Absolutely, my friend. (Laughs.)

Shilts: You know, if someone come up to you and say “I just came to your show. It was my worst experience of my life. When can I do it again?” (Both laugh.)

Smitty: That’s not a good thing.

Shilts: No, no, no. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Well, let’s see, you owe me a beer, right?

Shilts: Probably several by this point, yeah.

Smitty: (Laughs.)

Shilts: But be careful because I will make you drink them. (Both laugh.)

Smitty: Man, that’s too cool. Well, Shilts, I’m really loving this record, I think you really scored a hit with this one, there’s something here for everyone, radio, for just kicking back at the barbeque or just really getting down at one of your great shows, and I really look for some really big things to happen with this record and I want to congratulate you and thank you for doing it.

Shilts: Well, thank you, Smitty. No, I appreciate it. Thanks for the kind words and looking forward to doing the next one, really.

Smitty: Yes indeed. And I hope you come back and we’ll talk some more, man.

Shilts: Absolutely.

Smitty: It’s always a great conversation with you and I’m always excited when I hear that you’re putting a new record out there.

Shilts: No, any time, my friend.

Smitty: All right, we’ve been talking with the incredible Shilts. He has a great new project that is out there in stores everywhere. It is called Jigsaw Life, I highly recommend that you pick this one up because it is a terrific project with some fantastic songs. Shilts, thanks again, my friend, and all the best in 2008 and beyond, my friend.

Shilts: Thank you very much.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.shiltsmusic.com and www.thenugroove.com